Allentown Man Gets Jail For Beating Toddler

Wife For Allowing It

An Allentown man was sent to state prison yesterday for physically abusing his 2 1/2 -year-old stepdaughter, and his wife was jailed for not protecting her child.

Police were alerted to the abuse after Joseph and Karen Yurkovitz went to a doctor in January 1987 to get a blood test for a marriage license. An employee in the office noticed bruises on the toddler's body and urged the couple to take the child to the emergency room at Sacred Heart Hospital, said Detective Sgt. Thomas Bennis.

Police, who were summoned to the hospital, photographed the child's face, showing large bruises on her face, arm and legs. In one of the photographs, the pigtailed girl is staring out from eyes surrounded by huge black and purple bruises. She has a finger in her mouth, and in one hand holds a box of crayons.

Joseph Yurkovitz, 25, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person and endangering the welfare of children. Lehigh County Judge James N. Diefenderfer sentenced him to two to 13 years on those charges and a consecutive term of one to two years for welfare fraud.

"Next to killing somebody I don't know if there's anything worse than abusing a small child," Diefenderfer said.

Part of the plea bargain made by the district attorney's office was the guarantee that the sentence for the abuse wouldn't exceed the mandatory minimum term of two years in prison.

But Assistant District Attorney Kelly Waldron said she had doubts about how remorseful Yurkovitz is and his desire to get treatment.

Yurkovitz told Donald Stone of Confront Inc., which runs a domestic violence program, that the child got the injuries from falling in a bathtub. He later told Stone the child fell against a toilet bowl.

Bennis, who was displeased with the plea bargain, told the court, "We had proof beyond a medical certainty that these injuries were not caused by any kind of fall."

Stone said he had five counseling sessions with Yurkovitz and found "violence is definitely integrated into his belief system."

"He believes he has the right to hit his family members if they need it," Stone said. "He feels he has the right to do that as the head of the household."

Yurkovitz, his hands fidgeting behind his back, told Diefenderfer he knew he did wrong.

While Yurkovitz was being sentenced, his 23-year-old wife, Karen, was in another courtroom for her case. She was in the middle of her sentencing hearing before Judge David E. Mellenberg and came to Diefenderfer's courtroom in time to see her husband being handcuffed and led out by sheriff's deputies.

She cried and embraced her husband and then went back to Mellenberg's courtroom where she was given six to 23 months in prison.

Assistant Public Defender Robert Long asked Mellenberg to put Mrs. Yurkovitz on probation. "She loves her husband. She had to make a choice. Maybe she made the wrong choice," he said.

Although Mrs. Yurkovitz didn't abuse the child, she did nothing to stop it, and loving her husband isn't an excuse, the judge said.

"Most mothers would have taken a 2-by-4 and rapped him over the head and split his skull open," Mellenberg said.

When he handed down the sentence, he said a message has to be sent to the community that abuse can't be condoned.

Mrs. Yurkovitz whimpered, "No," and told Mellenberg she has a 6-month- old child at home. "She needs me, not somebody else to raise her," she said, leaning over the table and crying.

"Those are my children. Don't take them from me," Mrs. Yurkovitz pleaded.

Robin, the child who was abused, had been taken from the couple's home at 729 Lynwood St. after she was released from Sacred Heart Hospital. She has been living with Mrs. Yurkovitz's mother. The infant and Mrs. Yurkovitz's 5- year-old daughterhave been living with their mother.

Patricia Evers, a caseworker with the Lehigh County Office of Children and Youth Services, said she would try to make arrangements for placing the children.

"No! I don't want you to have them," Mrs. Yurkovitz screamed at the caseworker.

Her mother, who was sitting in the courtroom, stood up from her seat and approached the judge. She said she would care for the children.

Evers told Diefenderfer and Mellenberg that Mrs. Yurkovitz and her husband have had a cavalier attitude, haven't cooperated with caseworkers and have denied that there are any problems.